Ezra 10:13
But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two: for we are many that have transgressed in this thing. But the people are many, and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two: for we are many that have transgressed in this thing.
The verse records the reply of the people assembled at Jerusalem on the twentieth day of the ninth month, after they were told they had added to Israel's guilt by taking foreign wives and must make confession to the Lord and separate from the peoples of the land and from those wives. They agreed that what had been commanded must be done. But they answered that the people were many, that it was a season of heavy rain in which they were not able to keep standing outside, and that settling so many cases of unfaithfulness could not be done in one day or two because many had transgressed in this thing.
They therefore asked to settle the matter in groups at appointed times until everyone involved was cleared, with appointed men examining each individual case to decide what each person should do. This plan was accepted and was finished over two full months, from the first day of the tenth month to the first day of the first month. That two-month work was a practical separation from the world, from intermarriage and other forbidden alliances and heathen abominations that had demoralized the people so that they could not be taught, and it had to come before they could be taught the law.
It belongs to the effort to separate the people from the heathen and bring them into a spiritual condition in which they could understand the importance of rebuilding Jerusalem. As part of God's clear counsel on marriage, the verse gives important instruction and timely warning to be read, prayerfully considered, and cheerfully obeyed. It teaches that marriage is to be only in the Lord, and that studying the duties of marriage before entering that honorable estate spares bitter anguish of heart, painful regret for long years, frequent disappointments, and repentance that is at once too soon and too late.
It teaches that thorough preparation of heart is essential to a proper understanding of the law, requiring complete separation from the world and a determination to do God's commandments, since ignorance is the result of wickedness.